Option 1: Goals from a template

Goal templates are designed to help you set actionable goals that meet standard business objectives. You can edit any template field before saving a goal. The goal categories (Revenue, Acquisition, Inquiry, Engagement) are the larger business objectives that motivate the goal templates. Use them as an organization tool to help you think about the purpose of your goals. Try to create at least one goal for each category to get a better understanding of how users interact with your content. These categories don’t affect any data or your reports.

Don't see any templates? Goal templates are tailored to meet the needs of businesses within specific industries (automotive, entertainment, etc.). Templates are disabled if you haven't selected an industry within your account. To get templates that are relevant to your business, edit your property, select an Industry Category, and save your changes.

Goal configuration options

Goal types

As described in About goals, there are a number of different goal types, each used for a different kind of action you can measure. If you use a template, the best fit will be suggested for you. If you set up a custom goal, select the type that best fits the action you need to track. Expand the sections below to learn more about the details of each goal type.

Use destination goals to treat a pageview or screenview as a conversion. Enter the screen name or page URL in the Destination field. Specify the match type as Equals to, Begins with, or Regular expression.

A funnel refers to the path your users take to reach a particular destination. You can specify the screens or pages the user must visit prior to the final destination goal by turning on the Funnel option. For each step in the funnel, click +Add another Step, then enter a page name or an app screen name, as you did in the Destination field.

The funnel steps use the same match type as the Destination. For example, if you specified a regular expression for the Destination, all the funnel steps must match that same expression.

Measure user engagement by treating minimum session duration as a conversion. The Hours, Minutes and Seconds fields specify the minimum session time that qualifies as a goal conversion. Any session longer than this amount of time will generate a conversion..

Treat user interactions with your site or app as a conversion. You must first set up at least one Event to use Event goals. Use the Event conditions to configure the event components. Learn more about Events.

Measure user engagement by treating the number of pages or screens per session as a goal. Users who view more than the specified number of pages or screens will generate a conversion.

Set up Smart Goals

Smart Goals require no additional set up. If your account meets the prerequisites, all you need to do is select Smart Goals from the goal Types list and then give your goal a name. (That's why we called them "Smart Goals!")

Goal value

Assigning a monetary value to a goal gives you a way to compare conversions and measure changes and improvements to your site or app. All goal types except Smart Goals let you assign a value during the setup process. There are special considerations when setting up an Event goal or a goal that involves Ecommerce Tracking. Expand the sections below to see these considerations.

Use the Event value as the goal value. This will be whatever is defined in your Event tracking code as the value. Depending on your setup, this might not be a monetary amount. If you haven’t defined an Event value, the goal value will be empty. Change the goal value option to YES in the setup for this configuration.

Use a goal value. This works like setting a value for other types of goals. Keep the goal value option to NO in the setup for this configuration, and manually set the value.

If you’re tracking a transaction or purchase with the Ecommerce Tracking code, leave the Goal Value blank. The actual value of the transaction will appear in the Revenue metric (not the Goal Value metric), and will come from the Ecommerce Tracking code in your shopping cart.

You can change the currency unit for the goal Value in your view settings.

Verify your goal

Click Verify this goal to test your goal setup. This will calculate a conversion rate for this goal based on your data from the past 7 days.

This test is based on data in your account, and not actual conversion data. It is not a projection of how well your goal will perform.

Revise or Edit a goal

You can revise a goal you are in the process of defining by clicking the Edit link next to a previous step.

To edit an existing goal, navigate to the goals list and click the goal name to follow the step by step flow again.

Importing goals from the Solutions Gallery

Instead of creating your own goals, you can import them from the Solutions Gallery. When you import an goal from the Solutions Gallery, only the template is imported into your account. You can use that goal to track the conversions in your Analytics account, not the conversion data from the person that created the goal.